Matthew 4:1-11
Carla J. Bailey, Senior Pastor
The gospel writers tell us that Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness to prepare himself for his confrontational, public ministry, and that while he was there, he fasted. The tradition of giving something up for Lent or using this period of time to be especially disciplined in prayer or in changing behavior has its origins in the stories about Jesus confronting the temptations Satan placed before him. He was hungry – who wouldn’t be after forty days of fasting – so, the story implies, he was vulnerable to temptation. And they were certainly tempting temptations. But more of that in a moment.
The story is written to remind us of Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness - Jesus was in his wilderness for 40 days. The gospel writers each tell us Jesus endured and overcame Satan’s temptations. They each report that angels waited on him. Of course, all of these particular details of Jesus’ wilderness experience - his encounter with Satan, his verbal responses to the temptations, the ministering angels - all these are sories. There was no one watching Jesus. There is no mention of his having recorded his experiences, nor did Jesus speak of his experiences in the wilderness, not even to his disciples. The story that begins this season of Lent is about preparation and solitude, temptation and triumph and resistance to the offer of power. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us that Jesus faced some of the most tempting temptations imaginable. And that he resisted them all. And because our liturgical year brings us to this period of Lent as reliably as it brings us to Christmas, the story has a prominent place in our Christian story.
This past week, as I was preparing for today, the little book The Temptations of Jesus (Friends United Press, 1962), by Howard Thurman jumped into my hands. Let me read from Dr. Thurman’s sermon. “One of the common errors that we experience when we think reflectively about the meaning of the life of Jesus, is to isolate a particular event, and regard it as something which stands by itself alone. For instance, on Good Friday all of the concentration of the mind and the thinking is on the crucifixion, as if his life began there, as if there were no birth, no development, no logic. And so it is with the temptation. We think of them as taking place in a moment in time. Once they have been dealt with, once he has conquered them, then he goes on triumphing in the light of this conquest. How unlike our lives this is. Every battle that you win, you must win over and over again, for as long as you are living and growing and experiencing and developing. This is dramatized in Jesus’ dilemma of the crossroad.”
“Jesus and his disciples has been in Jericho and as they were walking together on the road that leads out of Jericho, they approached the fork. One road went north to Galilee and Nazareth, the other went south to Jerusalem. As they neared, something strange apparently took place in Jesus’ face and his whole body. He strode ahead of his disciples and when they looked in his face, they were frightened. This is the only place in the Gospels in which it is written that when the disciples looked into the face of the master, they were frightened. They were frightened by what they saw as he moved ahead of them and then made a sharp turn south – to Jerusalem. What was going on in his mind? We don’t know. But any reading of his life would indicate that this was one of the critical moments when he had to say, as was dramatized in the temptations, What shall I do if I am to be true to the One who sent me forth? I could go back to my home in Nazareth or I can go to Jerusalem where the powers and principalities thrive.”
Temptation is never a single experience. If it were, it could scarcely qualify as a temptation. No, temptations are difficult because they are constant, because they swirl around us when we are vulnerable, tired, hungry, lonely. Temptations creep up behind us, hit us upside the head when we are proud, successful, triumphant and feeling invulnerable. Temptations that are, you know, tempting, are familiar. We know their contours. We know their technique. There is the temptation to be self-righteous. There is the temptation to be hopeless. There is the temptation to be dismissive. There is the temptation to be too busy. There is the temptation to be impervious to suffering. There is the temptation to be so empathetic as to be ineffective. There is the temptation to be indispensable. There is the temptation to win in every power-struggle. Worry is tempting. Anger is tempting. Indifference is tempting. Recognize yourself in any of these temptations?
The story of Jesus’ temptations pierces through to some of the most painful problems of our lives. If God is really on your side, why don’t you use that proximity to make some things happen? Why don’t you satisfy your personal needs by turning that stone into bread? Or better, why don’t you turn the dust in the refugee camps into rice so the innocent won’t starve to death. Why don’t you assume the power you could have and rule this kingdom? No? OK, then why don’t you use some of that power to create a lasting peace in Jerusalem. Or perhaps a little of that power could be turned loose to eradicate malaria. Why don’t you just see if God really wants you to live and throw yourself over this cliff? If you don’t want to test God with your own life, how about using the lives of the 5.6 million children in the United States who are living in extreme poverty – throw them over the cliff, why don’t you and see if God really wants them to live. The temptations recorded in the Gospels all speak to the same haunting question - Can God actually do anything or not? Can God give you the power that is so coveted by human beings? Are you actually special to God? Is anyone? How would we know?
This story about Jesus’ encounter with Satan and the temptations which he overcame is a story rich with meaning and metaphor. Each of the temptation Jesus faced down foreshadow the most significant events in Jesus’ ministry. They signal the very things that later frightened and confounded everyone who encountered him. They were the very temptations Jesus had to face again in the last days of his life. He overcame the wilderness temptations at the beginning of his ministry and at the end, when he set his face toward Jerusalem, when he knew and yet did not prevent his betrayer, when he prayed for the cup to pass from him, when he hung from the cross and cried out his abandonment.
How you spend these forty days is, of course, entirely up to you. Apparently, we’ll all be clearing snow. Some of us will be going to Mississippi. Others will be catching up on some reading. The daily demands of our lives don’t stop for Lent so we will be keeping appointments, going to work and school, filing income tax returns, fixing dinner. But we will also be facing our temptations – the real ones, the ones that have taken up permanent residence in our hearts. If I may be so bold as to ask this of you – face them head on, why don’t you? Look them dead in the eye. Though they never go away, they don’t stand up well to honest scrutiny. Then, then, let’s talk about the Resurrection. Amen.